“Tim’s Take” on Twitter

“The original purpose of Twitter,” UC Davis student Tim Kerbavaz explains, “was to answer, ‘what are you doing right now?’ It has since evolved into a platform for sharing short (140-character) updates about you and your relationship to the world.”

Depending on who you follow, Twitter can be a news source for current events or a way to keep up with a particular community (like educational technology). Either way, “Twitter is timely.”

Because Twitter is open to anyone (and it’s very easy to “follow” someone), this network functions as a public “face” to the internet. The downside is that it’s hard to avoid spam, tweets are archived on unknown sites, and you can’t use your success on Twitter in a resume.

On the other hand, because Twitter is so open, you can easily set up multiple accounts so that each serves a specific purpose. Platforms like Twitterific, Hootsuite, and TweetDeck help you manage these accounts and allow you to schedule tweets in advance and integrate your presence across platforms.